[R-G] Fwd: Letter to Brazil from Mr. Eusi Kwayana of Guyana concerning safe return of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine in Haiti = Appeal from Guyana independence leader and distinguished elder

[Anthony Fenton]

LETTER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF BRAZIL CONCERNING THE SAFE RETURN OF  
LOVINSKY PIERRE-ANTOINE, BY MR. EUSI KWAYANA, A DISTINGUISHED ELDER  
FROM GUYANA, KNOWN BY MANY THROUGHOUT THE CARIBBEAN REGION. HE WAS  
CENTRAL IN BRINGING TOGETHER AFRO AND INDO PEOPLE IN GUYANA’S  
INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE.

20 May 2008HIS EXCELLENCY MR. ANTONIO DE AGUIAR PATRIOTA,
Brazilian Ambassador to the United States
3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 90008

HER EXCELLENCY, MS. THERESA MARIA M. QUINTELLA,
Consul General of Brazil
8484 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90211


YOUR EXCELLENCY,
It is time, after nine months of uneasy anxiety, that some authority  
charged in the name of the international community with responsibility  
for security in Haiti, advise the international community, that is,  
the international public, of its findings in regard to the scandalous  
kidnapping or disappearance of Haitian citizen and patriot, MR.  
LOVINSKY PIERRE-ANTOINE.

The date of MR. PIERRE-ANTOINE’S disappearance is well established. It  
is also known that he had been helping human rights delegations from  
two countries the USA and Canada, countries with famous courts and  
parliaments.

Please do not misunderstand this appeal. It has great hope in the  
United Nations as a peacekeeping agency and much hope in the evolution  
of democracy in Brazil, which holds a leading position in the United  
Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. My disappointment is therefore  
considerable. Every son and daughter of Haiti deserves the protection  
of the law and of special international arrangements. LOVINSKY PIERRE- 
ANTOINE is a son of Haiti, one who is well-known in the region and is  
becoming better known in the world. His international reputation is a  
standard of judgment of the peacekeeping force. Their reputation will  
rise or fall with his fortunes. In the present day world, news of  
violations is highly saleable.

The world knows of no position by the official agencies in Haiti,  
whether domestic or international, on this important instance of  
inhumanity. When this matter was raised from the floor at a Conference  
on Haiti’s children at a University in San Diego, USA, the Ambassador  
of Haiti to the USA made a spirited response. Not only did he  
establish the non-involvement of the government of Haiti in the  
kidnapping of LOVINSKY PIERRE-ANTOINE, but he effectively defended the  
government, assuring the audience that it had no hand in the  
unfortunate affair. No one had even suggested that it had.  He said  
that Mr Pierre-Antoine was probably a rival candidate of some other  
person and hinted that in such circumstances disappearances have  
sometimes occurred.  I do not have a record of his statement before  
the gathering, and I am open to any correction he or any other party  
may wish to offer.

All the Ambassador was able to do was to vindicate the Haitian  
government. But MR. PIERRE-ANTOINE’S lawyer was present and rose to  
rebuke the government for its silence and its alleged failure to  
exercise its national responsibility.

The government of Haiti being ruled out as complicit in MR. PIERRE- 
ANTOINE’S absence, the hemisphere to which Haiti has always been  
central turns its searchlight on that multinational force considered  
to be of vital assistance to a historically crippled domestic  
government, and on the leadership of that force, the Republic of  
Brazil, a major hemispheric partner. Their presence there leads the  
uninformed to presume that they are there to supply the kind of  
expertise and clout which cannot be expected of the government in  
Haiti’s present circumstances. In these times of secretly employed but  
widely known intrusive surveillance, satellite observation on land,  
sea and air, clandestine wiretapping and other equipment useful in  
both offence and defense, there is a credibility gap. The public is  
not inclined to believe that a few thugs in Haiti have so completely  
baffled the humane capacity of the leading States of the hemisphere.

This matter of the disappearance of MR. LOVINSKY PIERRE-ANTOINE must  
therefore be taken to the bemused population of the hemisphere and the  
world at present waiting with impatience for some word of  
encouragement from the United Nations and its peacekeeping forces.

These forces must be aware of the kidnapping and disappearance of  
Haiti’s first Prime Minister, TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE. The French regime  
of that time, a regime of soldiers, treated TOUSSAINT’S fate with a  
silence similar to that with which MR. PIERRE-ANTOINE’S kidnapping is  
now being treated. Is this French model the model for the UN troops  
and its officials?

Questions rush to mind. The hemisphere certainly and the international  
community wish to know what task force has been set up to track the  
disappearance of LOVINSKY and other persons, regardless of their  
political attachment, who may be less well-known but in similar  
circumstances.

It is possible to have wrong notions about what happened to LOVINSKY.  
It is possible to make statements and then find the need to revise  
them. Is it possible in an age such as this, known for invasive  
surveillance, for criminal secrets to be so well-kept?

In the military context of a peacekeeping force, silence for two weeks  
on the part of the Commanding Authority may be advisable, after it has  
made an initial statement of concern assuring the public of its active  
pursuit of the offenders.  Silence for three weeks may be cause for  
concern, yet understandable if it had given the necessary assurances.  
Silence for nine months becomes its opposite, and is no longer silence  
but an eloquent confession of incapacity, or worse, lack of concern.

If a citizen of LOVINSKY PIERRE-ANTOINE’S prominence and popularity  
can be “caught up in the air”: then the fate of the unknown citizen in  
Haiti under the aegis of the United Nation’s force is not an enviable  
one.

Questions persist: When did the authorities first hear of this  
kidnapping? What specific steps have they taken? Who is keeping PIERRE- 
ANTOINE’S wife and their children informed? Are there no suspects? Is  
the kidnapping seen as self-inflicted? Have the suspects, if any,  
evaded the UN’s multi-national capacity? Were there secret landings of  
aircraft unknown to the official guardians? Was he spirited away in a  
small boat and have all suspects been called in? Has LOVINSKY PIERRE- 
ANTOINE been rendered? Where are the international media, famous for  
increasing effectiveness? Have state and media conspired not to  
investigate the fate of this man? Is he held by the forces of law and  
order, and if so where are his rights? If he is held, on what  
allegations or reasonable suspicion? Was this man, who was well known  
for his committed to non-violence and aimed to become a senator,  
suspected of planning to blow up the parliament?

Your Excellency, MS. THERESA MARIA M. QUINTELLA,
I ask you to transmit this letter to your government in Brazil without  
delay. Out of respect for President Lula as an elected Head of State  
the author shall release it to the international media in the Region  
and in all continents not before the end of the second day of its  
dispatch to the Head Consulate Officer of Brazil in Los Angeles.

Yours sincerely,
EUSI KWAYANA
Cc:
United Nations Secretary-General

Congresswoman Maxine Waters

Amnesty International

Pax Christi

Global Women's Strike, Los Angeles

Haiti Action Committee